DIY Lamp Shade From Dowels

Glue guns, never been my best friends. Maybe this is connected to the fact that i always purchased the cheap ones? Maybe not, but i always ended up being frustrated with million tiny glue string cobwebs surrounding me, and trying to brake trough just to be able to make a cup of tea afterwards. So when i got the chance to test out http://www.gearbest.com/other-tools/pp_393558.html?lkid=10318874 i was a bit skeptical, but since i had it, i thought lets try out a old project i have done years ago, which almost consists of glueing together gazillion of dowels to make a lamp shade... And what do you know? It seems that paying more than 2$ for a tool is brilliant idea :D

Step 1: Tools and Materials

Dear likeminded tinkerers and diy'ers :) Nothing fancy here. You will need:

Tools

A glue gun ( http://www.gearbest.com/other-tools/pp_393558.html... )

Thats it :D well depending on what direction you will go with lighting situation, you might need some standard tools. I switched to LED flood light, so i just stuck my creation on top of it and i was good :D

Materials:

Some kind of a light (led strip, bulb, flood light, flashlight. Anything will work since you can put it inside, no 'thats what she said' jokes please :D

Glue sticks (obviously, so simple yet i had to make a trip to local hardware shop)

Dowels (since, i had left over from other projects did not need to pick up those on the hardware store run:D )

Paint (as you will see, i switched my mind mid painting, this gave perfect chameleon effect)

Diamond laquer spray (gives a little umf if you will)

Step 2: Making Layers

This is super simple, but very repetitive process. Making a lot of layers is key to perfect look and you will be free to choose and create your designs as you wish and make it as high as you imagination is.

Simply glue one end of a dowel to another dowels side. Repeat with 4 dowels and you will have perfect (well mostly perfect) squares. Make couple of them, drink tea/coffee/whatever you like the most and keep making them.

Although this is very repetitive, i found it to be relaxing as well. So if the boss, or teacher, or whoever got on your nerves, this is perfect. Make some crafts, let some steam out in the controlled and non destructive way. You do not want to buy a new tv. Do not ask why i am making this reference :D

Step 3: Designer Time

So i figure, you should have more layers on your table than you know what to do with them. I'm just kidding, i know you smart people have tingling sensation in your hands to star stacking them. I made first three layers as my base, you do not need to do this, but is gives a little bit of separation from the base where it will be coming from, to make it more organic. Atleast this is what i think, you might consider that i have no idea what i am talking about. Cheers :D But after the base, slightly shift by couple degrees layer, and second one a little bit more from the previous one. In this case you will get spiral shaped creation like mine. If you shift each layer by 90 degrees you will get more uniform castle like type of a deal which will be much more effective since it will have bigger gaps to let more light, somehow i liked more spiral... well maybe next one :D

Step 4: Painting

Oh i love this step.

Although i started with a blue color in mind. And i love this ultramarine blue by the way, i just was not feeling it on this project. So i switched to a mate black. And it cam out perfect. I was amazed how good something can look in black. Well its classic color after all. So no wonder here i guess. I finished it of with something which i found intriguing- a diamond effect. It sounded so fancy. Well to be honest this creates a metal flake effect, and pictures does not do it justice. But you will have to try for your self to find out how beautiful this can look.

Step 5: Finishing Up

So there is the last thing to do. Put the light in, or in my case put the lamp shade on the LED flood light, it creates nice low ambient light, which puts nice striped effect on the wall and nice square on the top. All in all painting it with two colors created nice chameleon effect which you can see from the photos. Well chameleon effect was achieved by me being bit lazy with black color and not covering everything properly. But this nice accident created super nice effect which by my own, i think would be hard to create. Accidents some times creates most amazing results. All in all it was quick and relaxin evening. Making this lamp. I hope you enjoyed it. Cheers